PostgreSQL Input and Output

Let’s imagine a scenario where you have 10 different SQL queries to run and they will take few hours each. You don’t want to run it in the peak hours because it will slow down your entire server. You don’t want to stay back late either. So you decided to put all the queries in a text file and run them with your PostgreSQL client at the end of the day and you go for a bottle of beer at the nearest club and call it a day.

Here is how you do it in PostgreSQL. First, fire up your PostgreSQL client such as

psql -h your-host-name -U your-username -d your-dbname

and then, you run the \i command. Well, “i” is obviously stands for “input”.

\i /path/to/your/sql/file

VOILA, the sql are running. And then you pack your stuffs and call up your friends to meet you up at that bar you talked about earlier. But wait a minute. What if something went wrong? what if my console suddenly close itself? I won’t know if all the queries ran successfully or not. Don’t worry, you say. We can stream the output into a log file. And when we come back tomorrow morning, we will know where to check. And so, you pressed CTRL+C to cancel your previous job and waited a while until it finish cancelling it and then you start stomping some other commands:

\o /path/to/your/log/file
\i /path/to/your/sql/file

And voila!! you can really go to that pub where your friends are waiting now. Have a good evening, folks!!